


A Heaven of Blackbirds

by tree



Category: The Fionavar Tapestry
Genre: F/M, Yuletide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-12-25
Updated: 2007-12-25
Packaged: 2017-10-02 08:02:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tree/pseuds/tree
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jaelle's story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Heaven of Blackbirds

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 2007 Yuletide Challenge.
> 
> Thank you to: Aspen for letting me play in this fandom - it was as difficult and rewarding as all the best experiences are; ricepaper - for booty-shaking, cheerleading and helpful suggestions; ivyenglish for reassurance and helpful suggestions; and ginger_delirium for all around handholding and putting up with me.
> 
> All characters and recognisable phrases are the property of GG Kay. The words of the poem _Desire_ belong to Joy Harjo. The title of section one is from the song of the same name by Belly.

**I - Low red moon**

_Say I chew desire and water is an explosion  
of sure wings in my mouth._

She felt the moon's arrival before it rose on the third night. The small measure of Dana's power within her beat heavy and deep as drumming, a calling just beyond the reach of sound. And so she was in the courtyard beyond the sanctuary of the Temple in Paras Derval at moonrise to witness and give praise to the goddess' full, blood-red intercession. A call to war, a reply to the Unraveller's gauntlet, a light in the dark. And to know, better than almost anyone living, its true nature. The infinite double-edged grace of all of Dana's gifts.

She took six of her women, in the darkness, in the blessed, blessing rain, to the Godwood and the Summer Tree. And found the stranger alive.

Gently, reverently, they gathered his body and took him to the Temple. His skin was scoured and raw from two days under the burning sun, terribly pale below the wounds. His lips were cracked and bloodied, his eyes sunken deep into his skull. They bathed him, anointed him with salves and fresh linens, lay him in the High Priestess's own chamber.

And all the while, Jaelle burned with a bright fury. When the women left her, she sat across from his sleeping body, a fist lodged in her chest squeezing the breath from her lungs. A hot ache bloomed in her throat and the scent of rain, so longed for, so hard won, brought her no joy. Who was this otherworlder, this _man_, to be vouchsafed the double gift of Her blessing and voice? It was more, so much more, than she could bear. Fiery tears spilled onto her cheeks as she shook and shook in the sanctuary while the God's rain poured down. Red rain in the light of a full moon on new moon night.

"Who are you?" she whispered to the man sleeping in her bed. In bitterness, in a kind of wonder.

_Oh Dana_, she cried in the silence of her heart, grieving as she never had before. _Why not me?_

**II - A streaming as of moonlight**

_Say it tastes of you._

She could not hate him as she wanted; could not, would not question the will of the Goddess whose child and servant she had always been. And she was, in some strange way, drawn to him. This child of the God, Lord of the Summer Tree, Pwyll. His presence invaded some still place inside her until it was too difficult to hold herself so very far away. There was something both peaceful and frightening in the grey of his eyes. It unsettled her, all the more so because she had no defence against the unsettling. Somehow he was always, always pulling her closer, into his own deep quiet.

She spilled her own blood to send him out of Fionavar and back into his own world. He and Jennifer, who had borne the Unraveller's babe. It had been her way of honouring him, she understood in the dawn of the following morning, for his sacrifice and for something else.

Touching Dun Maura had always taken her out of herself, flung her far into the dark arms of the Goddess. She slept long and deep and dreaming whenever she tapped the earthroot. And in the depths of the sleep that came over her after the spinning of such power, she dreamed of him.

It was very bright in the dream, so bright she could barely see. Yet his face, his eyes, were as clear to her as any sight had ever been. Their grey was the colour of the sky, of the sea, in the soft light before sunrise. And Dana had no power at sea.

In the too-bright dream-light, she studied Pwyll's features as she had not allowed herself to do before. No longer the broken offering on the Tree, his dark hair was a striking contrast to the paleness of his skin. His nose was an elegant slope, his forehead high and smooth, and his mouth - oh. His mouth. In the dream she felt her heart quicken as her eyes fell on his slightly parted lips. Could not, could not, look away even as she felt the flush creep into her cheeks. She was High Priestess of Dana in Fionavar and he only a man, Twiceborn though he was. And yet she wondered what it would be like to touch his lips with her fingertips, to press her mouth against his own.

A hand touched her hair and she realised it was unbound, without even her circlet to hold it back. A second hand reached out and she felt his fingers sifting through the strands against her face. His hands in her hair. His thumbs tracing soft patterns on her temples, her cheeks. Jaelle raised her eyes to meet Pwyll's and felt the ground fall away at her feet. Something bright unfolded, blossomed in her belly and she knew she was anchored to the earth only by the warm reality of his skin on hers. In his eyes she saw the movement of the wind, the dizzying motion of wings. She closed her own.

**III - Maidaladan**

_Say I could drown because you left  
for the time it takes a blackbird to understand  
a pine tree._

He was the wind wearing away at the earth of her.

At fifteen she had donned the brown robes of an acolyte and, at seventeen, the red of the Mormae. There was joy in the Temple then, music and laughter and above all the bone-deep, soul-deep knowledge of her place in the Tapestry, the endless movement reaching always onward. Toward the Goddess.

But even she knew what it was to have men look at her with desire. For Dana was also the bride, lover of the God. In time, Jaelle had learned to use her beauty as a weapon, to instill fear rather than lust. She made herself cool as an icy river, sharp as a keen blade - her face and voice daggers, the spears of her eyes.

Jennifer had been right. She had never been in love.

Yet in the days following the Bael Andarien, Jaelle would remember Kevin Laine, who was Liadon, with sorrow, with joy, with something like love. In her bed in Gwen Ystrat, under the full moon at the heart of midsummer, she woke in the early hours to grieve and to rejoice for the Beloved Son, the sacrifice come freely.

The ecstasy, the terrible sadness, flowed through her like moonlit water. An exultant quake of pleasure wracked her body and left her shuddering, left her tossed and pitched on a dark sea of release.

In time, the joy of the melting snow was dimmed by the pale and broken grief in the eyes of Pwyll. _I am only her Priestess_, she had told him once, so long ago it now seemed. _You are only a man_. What she would not now give to have those words unsaid. To have some comfort to offer.

What had always seemed so solid and sure had begun to shift on the night she took his body from the Tree. The power of the Goddess had nothing to do with any man, was sourced in the wildness and fecundity of the earth. In the Temple, Jaelle had learned scorn for the other sex, and scorn for those who followed them. Ysanne had cast aside her service to the Goddess to live in the cottage by the lake before Jaelle was born, but the sting of the betrayal was a never-healing wound. Ysanne, youngest to wear the red of the Mormae, who had forsaken Dana for a man. A mage, a wielder of skylore, a child of Mörnir. As the seasons had turned and the killing summer brought its terrible burdens to bear upon the land, that fierce anger kept Jaelle tall and cold and bright.

No man moved her, not the light prince, nor the dark. Not the High King himself, though he demanded and was granted her respect.

No man.

Until Pwyll.

**IV - The light against the dark**

_Say we enter the pine woods at dawn._

_We never slept and the only opium we smoked  
was what became of our mingled breath._

The Loom shuttled faster and faster through the warm nights of summer until she could almost hear its clicking.

She felt restless, bereft. At Taerlindel, in the Temple, with the dead on seas that swelled a thousand years ago. She felt her thread in the Tapestry winding away from the Goddess and mourned, caught and balanced in a heartbeat between two longings.

At last, on the ruined plain of Andarien, with the sound of wings in her ears, she took the final step toward heart's desire. And understood, at long last, the true will of the Goddess.

She watched Pwyll, wrapped in the power of Mörnir, go deep, so deep, and knew that she loved him. She, who was High Priestess of Dana in Fionavar, untouched and untouchable. Between the drawing in of a breath and its exhalation she was changed, irrevocably, all her sharp edges worn smooth.

Her future became clear, in that swift and shining moment, and Jaelle made the only choice left her to make. With the soft and glorious light of Dana's full moon shining upon her, she accepted the Goddess' gift, each of its edges, and offered up thanksgiving and tears.

**V - Interwoven**

_Say the stars have never learned  
to say good-bye. (One is a jewel  
of blue magic in your perfect ear.)_

She waited, not knowing if he would come. She promised herself she would not beg.

But in the end all her imagined pride was for naught. The agony of his leaving shattered the cool impassivity which was her last, desperate defence.

And she was in his arms, his, and he in hers. The moment his mouth touched her, she remembered the long-ago dream and the brightness inside her was an explosion of joy and water and wings. She wept and whispered his name, _Pwyll, Paul, oh Paul_. His hands were in her hair, softly, softly and his mouth was on hers and the silver slide of his tongue against her own until she was dizzy with desire. Pressed to his beating heart, and his hands sifted through her hair.

Later, she and Teyrnon joined the powers of Goddess and God to send Kim and Davor home. Their goodbyes were bittersweet as she thought of all Paul was leaving behind to remain in Fionavar. With her.

And when it was over, when she was filled with moonlight and exhaustion, he took her hand and lead her to her chamber, whispered _Sleep_ as she sank deep. _Stay_, she thought before she tumbled, not knowing if she said it aloud. _Stay with me_.

**VI - The children of the Goddess and the God**

_Say all of this is true and more_

In the darkness before morning, she woke to his face soft with slumber. She could not stop herself from touching him lightly, in wonder: his cheek, his hair, a slow slide from shoulder to wrist. He was still fully clothed, but the warmth of his body had spread around her, like light.

She kissed his brow and the tip of his nose, felt a smile overtake her face when he opened his eyes. The look in them stole her breath, love and desire and sorrow and joy. It was almost too much to bear. It filled her to overflowing.

"You stayed," she murmured, voice still muzzy with sleep.

At that, he smiled, wide, wild. "You asked me to."

"Yes," she said, solemnly. "I did."

And then they both were laughing with the pure, airy joy of it. He kissed her and his lips were as warm as his body, wrapped around her like a second skin. She closed her eyes to feel everything more fully, to breathe him deep into the heart of her.

The day before she had been awash with fear and exhilaration and the too-bright newness of what was almost taken away. But in this moment she was whole and aware. No longer High Priestess of Dana, now she was only Jaelle, only a woman, and that was so much, so much.

She could not help pressing herself against his body as they kissed, and pleasure coursed a hot path through her limbs. One of her hands found its way under his shirt to the smooth skin of his back and the contact echoed within her everywhere. She remembered the great wave she had felt at Maidaladan when Kevin had done what he had done. And she found that somehow this was more, so much more. This desire was hers, hers and Paul's, closed as a circle flowing from one to the other. It was wild with love and gentleness and understanding. It was steeped in every word they'd ever spoken, harsh or gentle, in every experience.

They were panting now and his own hands were wandering restlessly over her robe. One knee inserted itself between her thighs, a delicious weight, and she gasped into his mouth.

Paul pulled away gently, scattering kisses across her cheek and into her hair. "Jaelle," he whispered. "There's no need to rush."

She pulled back to look into his eyes, then. "You know?"

He clasped her hand and drew it over his heart, nodding. "Everything doesn't have to come at once. This, just this is enough. More than I ever hoped."

And so it was, she saw. "I do not usually cry so easily," she told him, laughing a little, as saltwater coated her cheeks.

Pulling her tightly to him, Paul kissed her tears, and they lay together until she calmed. Jaelle breathed in the warm scent of him, steeped in the sleepy pleasure of being held so close. They drifted as the sun rose higher in the sky.

"I have two brothers," he told her later. "Both younger than me."

She could not see his face behind her, so she took one of his hands instead and kissed its palm. "You miss them."

He pulled her tighter against him and pushed his face into the warm curve of her neck. "I do. But," after a pause, "it's the same way I've been missing them for a long time. Since before any of this."

"It is the nature of all of Dana's gifts to be equal parts pain and joy," she told him. "And now it is something I truly understand." Rolling to face him, she touched a hand to his cheek. "I had thought that belonging to the Goddess could mean only one way, one path. Now I understand that I've been blind. I had to lose everything before I could learn to see."

"Yes," he said softly. "I know."

And he did. She could feel it, see it. He was Twiceborn, Lord of the Summer Tree.

There was a hint of humour in his eyes as he asked her, "So I'm your reward?" And then they were both laughing, wriggling like children under the covers, young and joyful and bright.

When she finally caught her breath, he was above her, all the plains of his body covering hers. His eyes were infinitely gentle in the early light as she heard his beloved voice offer her the formal words of love.

"Jaelle, _the sun rises in your eyes_."

**VI**

_then there are blackbirds  
in a heaven of blackbirds._


End file.
